I thought I had a great idea. This fine puzzle is a 600 piece puzzle of the world. The ocean pieces are normal puzzle shape, the country pieces are mostly individual (I can't remember if Vatican City is by itself, or part of another country.) The best thing to do is to put the ocean together, then put in the countries. The ocean pieces aren't just blue, but have information about all the countries on them...like name of the country, capital of the country, and approximate population.
It's a lovely puzzle. I thought the big girls and I would put it together in the study, where we have a table that is perfect for putting puzzles together.
So 3 or 4 weeks ago, we started working on it. And ... it went Ok. None of us are great at putting puzzles together, but I'm methodical and I separated the ocean pieces alphabetically and we made...decent progress.
But.
But.
BUT...
We had a little helper, and that little helper was Sarah. That girl is not very tall, but she has an amazing reach. Time after time, I would go into the study to find puzzle pieces on the floor. Our 6 yo and 4 yo also contributed to the chaos by playing on the same table and knocking the puzzle around.
After a couple of weeks of frustration, I gave up and took apart the partially finished puzzle. A part of me was bound and determined to finish, but I decided my daily irritation wasn't worth it.
There is a point to all this. Sometimes we have a good idea but it doesn't pan out. It takes wisdom to quit on something that just isn't working the way I hoped. I'm someone who likes to "finish what I've started" but sometimes it is better not to.
So, at some distant point in the future, we will put that puzzle together. Some time when I don't have a toddler eager to grab puzzle pieces and hurl them around the room.
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